Alpe D’Huez Triathlon 2026
Jack out of transition
Extraordinarily beautiful, a little bit brutal and definitely iconic, on the 5th August it was once again time for the Alpe D’Huez Long Course triathlon. This years representation from the GS team included Matt, Jack and of course Fran who has been ‘never going to do this race again’ for several years but seems to appear on the start line every year anyway. It probably doesn’t help that we can see the start line from our house :-)
Unfortunately, the lead in wasn't great. Matt came down with a nasty sickness bug in Courchevel 10 days before the event and Jack arrived on time but his bike didn't, only turning up 16 hours before the start of the race so no time to get any mountain rides in the legs. Fran also managed to tweak a glute muscle 3 days before the race so not ideal. For once, Lac de Verney was not meant to be its normal very cold self (race briefing claimed 20 degrees to get everyone’s hopes up) but an extended storm the night before put paid to that and it was back to its normal 15 degrees on race day! Not withstanding that, all 3 had a decent swim and headed off on the bike, despite fran nearly losing her race chip, due to an athlete yanking her ankle mid race. Fortunately she grabbed it and stuffed it down her wetsuit before it disappeared, costing 80 euros!. The bike course has 3400m of climbing in 118km and finishes up the 21 turns of Alpe D’Huez. Matt set off at a storming pace, overtaking several of the pro athletes and getting up to a podium A spot before his recent bug caught up with him. Sadly, stomach issue meant that he had to drop the pace right off and made the sensible decision not to run on an empty stomach. Matt definitely will be back next year :-)
It was also not Jack’s day. With limited time to sort his bike set up, after a strong start to the ride he started to cramp on the way up the Alpe. Unfortunately there is no hiding place on that hill and he had no choice but to stop and stretch and make his way up the mountain as gingerly as possible - which is never particularly gingerly!! Cramping quads meant no run for Jack either which was disappointing as he had a goal to improve on last years time. Jack may well be back next year :-)
On the Alpe
So it was left to the mighty midget to fly the flag for the team. Shivering from the swim all the way down the valley, it wasn’t until the start of the ascent to Col de la Morte that Fran started to shift. She moved from 6th in AG to 2nd on the climb, closing down fast on the lead. By the top of Col D’Ornon it was down to a couple of minutes but Fran was feeling the glute and it caused her some trouble up the Alpe and onto the run where running up the hills (and there are a lot of those), infact running in general was a problem. So hats off to Amelia Sved who had a storming race to post a sub 8 hour time and win Fran’s AG but Fran managed to hold on to 2nd despite the issues so a great result. Fran is ‘never going to do this race again’ again. So probably next year. Either way we will be here if anyone fancies it :-)